Brian Taylor is Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy, and Director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA.

Professor Taylor’s research centers on transportation policy and planning – most of it conducted in close collaboration with his many exceptional students.  His students have won dozens of national awards for their work, and today hold positions at the highest levels of planning analysis, teaching, and practice.

Professor Taylor explores how society pays for transportation systems and how these systems in turn serve the needs of people who – because of low income, disability, location, or age – have lower levels of mobility.  Topically, his research examines travel behavior, transportation economics & finance, and politics & planning.

His research on travel behavior has examined (1) the social, economic, and spatial factors explaining public transit use, (2) ways to cost-effectively increase public transit use, (3) how and why travel patterns vary by race/ethnicity, sex, age, and income, (4) the emerging travel patterns teens and young adults, (5) gender divisions of household labor and travel, (6) the effect of travel experience on how people perceive opportunities, (7) the role of walking, waiting, and transferring on travel choices, and (8) the equity implications of new shared mobility systems.

A principal focus of his research is the politics of transportation economics & finance, including (1) alternative ways to evaluate the access and economic effects of traffic congestion on people, firms, and regional economies, (2) the history of freeway planning and finance, (3) emerging trends in pricing road use, (4) the equity of alternative forms of transportation pricing and finance, (5) linking of subsidies to public transit performance, and (6) measuring equity in public transit pricing and finance.

The politics of planning practice inform Professor Taylor’s teaching, which regularly includes courses on Transportation and Land Use: Urban Form, Public Transit and Shared Mobility, Transportation Economics, Finance, and Policy, courses in research design for planners, and, occasionally, the Comparative International Transportation Workshop. Prior to joining the UCLA faculty, Professor Taylor was a planning faculty member at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and before that he was a planner with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Some recent publications (current and former student co-authors listed in italics)

 
Cities, Roads, & Congestion

Ding, Hao and Brian D.  Taylor.  2021.  “Traffic Trumps All:  Examining the Effect of Traffic Impact Analyses on Urban Housing,” Journal of Planning Literature, published online.

Taylor, Brian D.  and Yu Hong Hwang.  2020.  “The Eighty-Five Percent Solution: A Historical Look at Crowdsourcing Speed Limits and the Question of Safety,” Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 2674(9):  346-357.

Osman, Taner, Trevor Thomas, Andrew Mondschein, and Brian D.  Taylor.  2018.  “Does Traffic Congestion Influence the Location of New Business Establishments? An Analysis of the San Francisco Bay Area,” Urban Studies, 56(5):  1026-1041.

Thomas, Trevor, Andrew Mondschein, Taner Osman, and Brian D.  Taylor.  2018.  “Not so fast? Examining neighborhood level effects of traffic congestion on job access,” Transportation Research, Part A: Policy and Practice, 113:  529-541.

Mondschein, Andrew and Brian D.  Taylor.  2017.  “Is traffic congestion overrated? Examining the highly variable effects of congestion on travel and accessibility,” Journal of Transport Geography, 64: 65-76.

Brown, Anne, Brian D.  Taylor, and Martin Wachs.  2016.  “The Boy Who Cried Wolf? Media Messaging and Traveler Responses to “Carmageddon” in Los Angeles,” Public Works Management & Policy, 22(3): 275 –293.

Public Transit & Shared Mobility

Speroni, Samuel, Brian D. Taylor, and Yu Hong Hwang.  2022.  “Pandemic Transit:  A National Look at the Shock, Adaptation, and Prospects for Recovery,” in Pandemic in The Metropolis: Transportation Impacts and Recovery.  Basingstoke, United Kingdom:  Springer Nature.

Wasserman, Jacob and Brian D.  Taylor.  2022.  “Transit Blues in the Golden State:  Regional Transit Ridership Trends in California,” Journal of Public Transportation, published online.

Brown, Anne, Evelyn Blumenberg, Brian D.  Taylor, Kelcie Ralph, and Carole Turley Voulgaris.  2016.  “A Taste for Transit? Analyzing Public Transit Use Trends Among Youth,” Journal of Public Transportation, 19(1): 49-67.

Shockley, Daniel B., Julia Salinas, and Brian D.  Taylor.  2016.  “Making Headways: An Analysis of Smart Cards and Bus Dwell Time in Los Angeles,” Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 2539(05): 40-47.

Voulgaris, Carole Turley, Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, and Brian D.  Taylor.  2015.  “Planning for Pedestrian Flows in Rail Rapid Transit Stations: Lessons from the State of Current Knowledge and Practice,” Journal of Public Transportation, 18(3): 1-14.

Yoh, Allison, Brian D.  Taylor, and John Gahbauer.  2015.  “Does Transit Mean Business? Reconciling Economic, Organizational, and Political Perspectives on Variable Transit Fares,” Public Works Management & Policy, 21(2): 157-172.

Transportation Equity

Dasmalchi, Eric and Brian D.  Taylor.  2022.  “Examining Shifts in the Balance of Riders and Bus Service Before and During the Pandemic in Boston, Houston, and Los Angeles,” Findings, April.

Lederman, Jaimee, Anne Brown, Brian D.  Taylor, and Martin Wachs.  2018.  “Arguing over Transportation Sales Taxes: An Analysis of Equity Debates in Transportation Ballot Measures,” Urban Affairs Review, 56(2):  640-670.

Smart, Michael J., Anne Brown, and Brian D.  Taylor.  2017.  “Sex or Sexuality? Analyzing the Division of Labor and Travel in Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Households,” Travel Behaviour and Society, 6(2017): 75-82.

Taylor, Brian D.  and Eric A.  Morris.  2015.  “Public transportation objectives and rider demographics: Are transit’s priorities poor public policy?” Transportation, 42(2): 347-367.

Taylor, Brian D.  and Rebecca Kalauskas.  2010.  “Addressing Equity in Political Debates over Road Pricing: Lessons from Recent Projects,” Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 2187: 44-52.

Taylor, Brian D.  and Alexandra T.  Norton.  2009. “Paying for Transportation: What’s a Fair Price?” Journal of Planning Literature, 24(1): 22-36.

Transportation, Land Use, & Urban Form

Siddiq, Fariba and Brian D.  Taylor.  2021.  “Tools of the Trade? Assessing the Progress of Accessibility Measures for Planning Practice,” Journal of the American Planning Association, 87(4):  497-511.

Paul, Julene and Brian D.  Taylor.  2021. “Who Lives in Transit-friendly Neighborhoods?  An Analysis of California Neighborhoods over Time,” Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives, 10:  100341.

Blumenberg, Evelyn, Anne Brown, Kelcie Ralph, Brian D.  Taylor, and Carole Turley Voulgaris.  2019.  “A resurgence in urban living? Trends in residential location patterns of young and older adults since 2000,” Urban Geography, 40(9):  1375-1397.

Voulgaris, Carole Turley, Brian D.  Taylor, Evelyn Blumenberg, Anne Brown, and Kelcie Ralph.  2017.  “Synergistic Neighborhood Relationships with Travel Behavior: An Analysis of Travel in 30,000 U.S.  Neighborhoods,” Journal of Transport and Land Use, 10(1):  437-461.

Ralph, Kelcie, Carole Turley Voulgaris, Anne Brown, Evelyn Blumenberg, and Brian D.  Taylor.  2016.  “Millennials, built form, and travel: Insights from a nationwide typology of U.S. neighborhoods,” Journal of Transport Geography, 57: 218–226.

Brown, Jeffrey R., Eric A.  Morris, and Brian D.  Taylor.  2009.  “Planning for Cars in Cities: Planners, Engineers, and Freeways in the 20th Century,” Journal of the American Planning Association, Special Centennial Issue, 75(2): 161-177.

Transportation Policy & Finance

King, Hannah, Natalie Amberg, Jacob L. Wasserman, Brian D. Taylor, and Martin Wachs.  2022.  “LOST and Found: The Fall and Rise of Local Option Sales Taxes for Transportation in California amidst the Pandemic,” Pandemic in The Metropolis: Transportation Impacts and Recovery.  Basingstoke, United Kingdom:  Springer Nature.

Brown, Anne, Jaimee Lederman, Brian D. Taylor, and Martin Wachs.  2020. “Analyzing voter support for California’s local option sales taxes for transportation,” Transportation, 48:  2103-2125.

Lederman, Jaimee, Anne Brown, Brian D.  Taylor, and Martin Wachs.  2018.  “Lessons Learned from 40 Years of Local Option Transportation Sales Taxes in California,” Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 2672(4): 13-22.

Lederman, Jaimee, Brian D.  Taylor, and Mark Garrett.  2016.  “A Private Matter: The Implications of Privacy Regulations for Intelligent Transportation Systems,” Transportation Planning & Technology, 39(2):115-135.

Lederman, Jaimee, Mark Garrett, and Brian D.  Taylor.  2016.  “Fault-y Reasoning: Navigating the Liability Terrain in Intelligent Transportation Systems,” Public Works Management & Policy, 21(1): 5-27.

Morris, Eric A, Jeffrey R.  Brown, and Brian D.  Taylor.  2016.  “Negotiating a Financial Package for Freeways: California’s 1947 Collier-Burns Highway Act and the Creation of Highway Trust Funds,” Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 2552(03): 16-22.

Travel Behavior

Manville, Michael, Brian D. Taylor, Evelyn Blumenberg, and Andrew Schouten.  2022.  “Vehicle access and falling transit ridership: evidence from Southern California,” Transportation, published online.

Schouten, Andrew, Brian D.  Taylor, and Evelyn Blumenberg.  2021. “Who’s on Board?  Examining the Changing Characteristics of Transit Riders Using Latent Profile Analysis,” ,” Transportation Research Record:  Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 2675(7):  1-10.

Schouten, Andrew, Evelyn Blumenberg, and Brian D.  Taylor.  2021.  “Rating the Composition: Deconstructing the Demand-Side Effects on Transit Use Changes in California,” Travel Behaviour & Society, 25:  18-26.

Turley, Carole Voulgaris, Michael J.  Smart, and Brian D.  Taylor.  2017.  “Tired of Commuting? Relationships among Journeys to School, Sleep, and Exercise among American Teenagers,” Journal of Planning Education and Research, 39(2):  142-154.

Blumenberg, Evelyn, Kelcie Ralph, Michael Smart, and Brian D.  Taylor.  2016.  “Who Knows About Kids These Days? Analyzing the Determinants of Youth and Adult Mobility in the U.S.  between 1990 and 2009,” Transportation Research, Part A: Policy and Practice, 93:  39-54.  (Authors listed alphabetically).

Mondschein, Andrew, Evelyn Blumenberg, and Brian D.  Taylor.  2010.  “Accessibility and Cognition: The Effect of Transport Mode on Spatial Knowledge,” Urban Studies, 47(4): 845-866.